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Mulligan, a Republican, lost to Mayor Bill Courtright, a Democrat, by 517 votes in the Nov. 7 election, 7,447 to 6,930, according to unofficial results. Libertarian nominee Gary St. Fleur received 350 write-in votes and 146 people cast write-in ballots for others. The winning margin is about 3.5 percent of the more than 14,800 cast.

Mulligan is asking for a manual recount of all voting machines and absentee ballots because of the closeness of the race and possible errors. Mulligan’s lawyer, Anthony Lomma, said the board can order a full recount, but he is mainly interested in checking a handful of voting machines.

The Lackawanna County Board of Elections scheduled a meeting for 10:30 a.m. Tuesday to hear the request.

Mulligan declined to comment and referred questions to Lomma.

Lomma said some city voting precincts had severe “undervotes” in some races. That means the number of votes cast in one race was far fewer than the number of people who voted in a precinct.

For example, 327 voted

in Scranton’s 9th Ward, 1st

District, including 320 in the mayor’s race, but only 190 cast ballots in the county recorder of deeds race and 144 for a register of wills.

Lomma said he wants to ensure the machines did not count too many votes in the mayor’s race.

“We just want to make sure the machines were counting properly,” he said.

By law, the county must pick a sample of voting machines and check their accuracy, he said. The check of city machines could happen at the same time.

Michael O’Brien, Courtright’s lawyer, said the mayor will oppose the request because it doesn’t allege specific errors that created an inaccurate count. The county’s electronic vote counters have proven accurate at counting paper ballots, he said.

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